Tag Archives: west sacramento newspaper

A four-legged toy drive

FROM THE NEWS-LEDGER — DEC 18, 2013 —

Roberta Firoved (pictured) was among the members of the West Sacramento Trail Riders Association who rode to Southport’s Fire Station 45 with a delivery of holiday toys for local distribution.Club members met at Tower Mart on Linden Road’s southern intersection with Jefferson, and rode north on Jefferson to the fire station at Lake Washington Boulevard.

There, they passed along items for the firefighters’ “Toys for Tots” collection.

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Copyright News-Ledger 2013

Nonprofit applies for new FM radio station license in West Sacramento

FROM THE NEWS-LEDGER — DEC 18, 2013 —

FM 92.9 would be part of effort to create a grassroots media organization for West Sac

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The News-Ledger and its editor, Steve Marschke, are a part of the effort described below. Volunteers are attempting to create a grassroots, nonprofit news center to serve West Sacramento into the future.)

A West Sacramento nonprofit group has filed an application with the FCC to create a local, low-power FM radio station in West Sacramento. The group has asked for authorization to use bandwidth at 92.9 on the dial.

WES BEERS: president of nonprofit that just applied for a low-power FM radio license in West Sac(News-Ledger file photo)

What kinds of shows might be aired at the new station?

“We’re hopeful in three areas,” said Wes Beers, a project proponent. “One is to bring a lot more community-based news to West Sacramento. The second is to partner with the city (government) in part to be available for emergency broadcasting, but also to broadcast items of interest to the city. Last, and maybe the most fun and exciting part, would be to work with the schools to broadcast school news and partner with them academically to enrich their broadcasting and journalism programs.”

The partnerships could involve River City High School and the local branch of the Sacramento City College, said Beers.

“They could broadcast school basketball games, football games, swim meets – and I think there’s an ability to ‘stream’ these broadcasts to the internet,” he added.

The City of West Sacramento paid the $2,000 consulting fee to a Davis-based nonprofit that assembled this radio station application. The application included an engineering study intended to show the new station would not interfere with existing stations that are nearby on the map and also nearby on the dial.

What does the city government want for its investment?

“Their interest, I think, is twofold,” said Beers. “They believe that having another form of communication to the community for an emergency situation would be a vital resource. And secondly, I think they’re excited about having the opportunity to enrich the community and the schools.”

The radio station application process can be competitive, and the Federal Communications Commission hasn’t yet responded to the application. But the names of all the other applicants have been released, and it doesn’t appear that anyone else in the region has submitted a conflicting claim for the same bandwidth.

The new radio proposal came out of a project to create a nonprofit news and information organization.

Beers, a former West Sacramento mayor and city councilman, began meeting in 2012 with the News-Ledger and various local citizens interested in starting a local, nonprofit media group.

“So much of our news is fed to us by bigger and bigger corporations, and this will keep and maintain an opportunity for a local perspective,” said Beers.

The group learned in July that the FCC would shortly accept applications for new low-power FM radio licenses – a relatively rare offering from the feds. Local volunteers, including Jim Brewer (who is also active in the local historical society and a Bryte/Broderick area community group) quickly scrambled to hit the FCC’s application deadline.

Meanwhile, this same group of eight volunteers became the new board of the West Sacramento Neighbors Fair, Inc. — an existing nonprofit in West Sac.

The Neighbors Fair organization was winding down its mission of bringing an annual community fair to West Sacramento, and its former leaders invited the new blood to take the helm and pursue a new type of “educational” nonprofit mission.

The new board is now starting to “repurpose” that nonprofit, said Beers.

It’s the West Sacramento Neighbors Fair nonprofit that filed for the radio license last month. Its new board members include Beers, his wife Jolaine Beers, Brewer, retired city manager Joe Goeden, Charlotte Dorsey, Carrie Fisher, John Siden and Gina Spadafori.

In Davis, the community radio station (“KDRT”) shares a building with a public access cable TV production facility.

The West Sacramento nonprofit is exploring a vision that could include print and online news, cable TV features, online streaming of video and audio, and the proposed radio station.

But all that is still in its planning stages.

West Sacramento is already home to KJAY radio at AM 1430. According to its website, KJAY brings the Sacramento region programming that includes Hmong-language features, religious programs and “international” content. KJAY is located in rural Southport.

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Copyright News-Ledger 2013

The birds, the bees, and Santa Claus

NEWS-LEDGER — DEC 11, 2013 —

As long as I can remember, my parents and relatives (and now my family) have celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. The place where the whole Fisher clan gathers is rotated each year and last Christmas my daughter (Carrie) and her husband (Dallas) were the lucky winners, which, among many other things, required them to spring-clean their house in December instead of May and also provide a tasty sit-down dinner for more than 20 people.

BY DARYL FISHER, News-Ledger Features Editor

“Do you know what Dallas wants to do on Christmas Eve this year?” my daughter had asked me about a week before the much anticipated evening arrived.

“Kiss you under some mistletoe?” I asked.
“I wish,” said my daughter, returning my smile. “No, he wants to dress up like Santa Claus and surprise all the young kids who are going to be there with some presents and ho-ho-ho’s and candy canes.”

“Hey,” I said, “now that’s a great idea!”

“Well,” continued my daughter, “you know how much Dallas loves Christmas – it’s his favorite holiday – so he went on Craigslist and found a used Santa Claus outfit that didn’t cost too much and it’s supposed to arrive any day now. So after dinner on Christmas Eve, he’s going to sneak out into the garage, put on the Santa suit, and then climb up on our roof and make reindeer sounds, whatever they are. And that’s the reason I’m telling you all of this, because although I love the Santa idea, it’s supposed to be cold and rainy on Christmas Eve and I don’t want Dallas falling off our roof and breaking his neck right after we all finish our dinner. And since he’ll usually listen to you, I was hoping you might be able to talk him out of over-doing the Santa thing.”

So, after everyone had finished their wonderful Christmas Eve dinner (including my mother’s delicious homemade lemon pie for dessert) , and without any noticeable reindeer or Santa sled noises coming from the roof, Santa himself suddenly appeared at my daughter’s front door, much to the delight of all the wide-eyed children in attendance. And not only did Dallas turn out to be one of the most believable Santa Claus’s of all time, but his booming ho-ho-ho’s and the obvious joy he got out of making all the young Fisher kids so happy brought about the following little family conversation:

(Santa spoiler to follow; this part of the story should probably not be shared with kids.)

“Dad,” said my daughter to me, “do you remember how I first found out that there was no Santa Claus?”

“Nope,” I admitted, “I don’t think that I do.”

“You honestly can’t remember?” she asked, shocked.

“I’m sorry, but my memory just isn’t what it used to be,” I explained in my defense.

“Well, it was only one of the worst days in my whole entire life, and since you are the one who told me, I’m surprised that you can’t remember doing it.”

“I told you there was no Santa Claus?”

“That’s right!”

“Did I just blurt it out of something?”

“No, it was even worse than that!”

“What did I do?” I asked with interest.

“Well,” explained my daughter, “I was about 12 or 13 years old and you said you needed to have a little talk with me about the birds and the bees, which of course was a pretty horrifying announcement to begin with, but when we finally finished our `little’ talk – which, by the way, I thought was never going to end – you added, almost as an after-thought, that you thought I also needed to know that there was no Santa Claus. I actually thought I handled the birds and bees thing pretty well, but also hearing that there was no Santa just crushed me!”

When Dallas and my sons, who were listing to the conversation, began to laugh, my daughter exclaimed, “It wasn’t funny at all! For years I had been fighting with all my friends, swearing to them that there really was a Santa Claus, and then to suddenly find out there wasn’t one, well, I was devastated!”

“Hey, I’ve got an even better story,” Dallas suddenly assured everyone. “I was about the same age as Carrie before my parents finally told me, and after I had spent about ten minutes in my bedroom trying to get my head around the whole idea, I realized that it did kinda help explain why Santa’s handwriting on the gift tags on my presents always looked a lot like the way my mother wrote. Anyway, after the shock had finally started to wear off, I ran back out to my parents and shouted with horror, `Please don’t tell me that this means that there’s no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy, either!”

Copyright News-Ledger 2013

Piece of Southport levee is finished

FROM THE NEWS-LEDGER — DEC 18, 2013 —

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced this week it has finished work on a setback levee near South River Road in West Sacramento.

Construction included a new “cutoff wall,” designed to strengthen the levee and keep water from seeping thorugh underneath. The old levee was left in place while the new one was built.

“Setback levees are bulit farther back from the river channel than typical levees, and are intended not only to reduce flood risk but also to preserve wildlife habitat between the water and levee,” reports the Corps.

Next year, work crews are scheduled to remove the old levee and repave South River Road atop the new 2,200-foot setback levee.

The project is part of the “Sacramento River Bank Protection Project,” involving the Corps and the California Central Valley Flood Protection Board.

Do you like what you see here?

You can support local journalism, support this website, and see all the News-Ledger’s articles every week! Subscribe to the News-Ledge newspaper. It’s only $20 per year within West Sacramento – once a week, delivered to your mailbox.

You can even try it for free for two months if you live in West Sacramento. Just send your name and mailing address to FreeTrial@news-ledger.com (offer open to new subscribers in West Sacramento ZIP codes 95691 & 95605).